SCENE + HEARD: Gingers Lead The GLAAD Pack With Zarin, Behar and Nixon

(Cynthia Nixon at the Marriott Marquis)
 
 
“I’m here to tell you that I’ve been straight and that I’ve been gay... and gay is better” said a statuesque Cynthia Nixon from the stage of the Marriot Marquis where she was presented with the Vito Russo Award at last night’s 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards. The star of the forthcoming Sex and the City 2 was in good company: the mammoth banquet hall was filled with friends, "family" and allies including Jill Zarin, Sigourney Weaver, Meredith Viera, Sandra Bernhard, Bryan Batt, Dustin Lance Black, “Why Will Won’t Pledge Allegiance” activist Will Philips, Malan Breton, Michael Urie, Michael Patrick King and host Alan Cumming.
 
“Barbara [Walters] would have been here tonight, but she’s signing her book at a Chuck E. Cheese’s,” chided Excellence in Media award recipient Joy Behar. After thanking the gays for basically giving her a career, Behar worked the room like the many downtown dives she used to play. On Sarah Palin’s new gig with Faux News, Behar said “At least she’s confined to a network who’s viewers are as bigoted as she is.”

The youth choir of the LGTB Center were on hand to perform as well as advocates like Elke Kennedy, who lost her son prior to the Hate Crimes Legislation’s passing and informed the audience that his attacker was released last July after only 359 days in jail. The evening was both enlightening and entertaining with performances by Cumming himself as well as the cast of Hair closing the show with “Let The Sunshine.” Longtime ally Rosie Perez veered off the script—and we know because the TelePrompter was as big as a billboard—gettingb big laughs when she confessed to Cynthia Nixon, “If I ever become a carpet muncher you and Beyoncè are at the front of the line!” –Christopher Dilley
 

(Photos: Joy Behar, Sahara Davenport, Reichen Lehmkuhl , Jill Zarin, Malan Breton, Sigourney Weaver, Gavin Creel and castmembers of Hair)